The prettiest/ugliest city in the world (apartments, houses)
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Charleroi: the most depressing city in Europe becomes more depressing by the day
The G20 summit in London will take place in a different universe from Charleroi, a Belgian city in the heart of Europe but cast into the economic wilderness for decades. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/f...y-the-day.html
It's the French part, not far from the Ardennes, i often go to.
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Once at the centre of Belgium's "pays noir" coal and industry belt, Charleroi, is surrounded by a post-industrial landscape of slagheaps and derelict factories. It faces the latest global recession having never recovered from the last two.
The city in the Walloon, French-speaking region of southern Belgium is openly acknowledged by many of its inhabitants to be the most depressing place in Europe.
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In recent times, Charleroi, whose people are known as "Carolos", has become notorious as the home of the paedophile serial killer, Marc Dutroux.
Last week, the city council finally decided to demolish his "house of horror", where abducted victims were kept in dungeons before being killed, and replace it with a memorial flower garden.
Another Carolo, Muriel Degauque, became the world's first white, female suicide bomber when she blew herself up in Baghdad in 2005.
Menawhile, Charleroi's solidly Left-wing council has become a byword for corruption, losing two Socialist mayors to various scandals in the last two years.
Some enterprising Carolos now offer "urban safaris" through the sheer hideousness of their city, now billed as "ugliest city in the world" by a recent opinion poll in neighbouring Holland.
"Hop in our van for an urban safari and discover the place where Magritte's mother committed suicide, the house of the infamous Dutroux, the most depressing street in all of Belgium, climb on a terril (waste coal pile) and visit an authentic abandoned metal factory," offers one tour company.
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These events, which are booked up for the next month, are a rare example of economic success. Nicolas Buissart, a Carolo studying art in Antwerp, launched the guided tours to get people to think twice about the city of his birth.
"When I found myself plunged in into Antwerp's cosmopolitan life, I discovered that Charleroi was the Walloon city most known by foreigners of all countries - but that that it was almost exclusively for negative reasons," he said.
"The tour can seem notorious but there is thought behind it. It is to try and show by absurdity that Charleroi has many things to offer."
Every year, millions of tourists and visitors pass through Charleroi's airport, the "Brussels South" home to Ryanair and other budget airlines, without glimpsing anything more than the city's terrils and abandoned factories.
"People fly in to visit Belgium on their way to Brussels or Bruges and they are shocked at the landscape of dirt, slagheaps and wasteland which looks like something from Russia," said Bert Thiry, 43, who works near the airport. "It does not make me proud to be Belgian."
Antoine Evrard, a 26-year-old builder, fears for the future as unemployment in Charleroi, a city still dominated by steel and manufacturing, rose to 23 per cent in Janury and continues to climb.
"Even during the good times, the unemployment rate was nearly one in five. Now they are saying the crisis is going to be like the 1930s. That will be a catastrophe here. We have been waiting for decades for an answer, what makes them think they will have one now?"
Marie Lejeune, aged 32 has been unemployed since December last year. As for this week's G20 summit and President Barack Obama's first trip to Europe, she said: "Just look around at this place. It will not be a summit for people like me or a hole like this."
all of Belgium looks bad,that's also mentality, just like the French, they make a mess of everything, unlike Germans, but Charleroi is really a disaster indeed.
But i don't know any beautifull Belgian major cities, they are all ugly, if something is beautifull about it it's rather the location between hills or along a river that give a charme on them. Tha't's it. Belgians are wealthy, but if you drive through Belgium you don't really notice it.
If you cross the broder with Germany or the Netherlands it's a huge difference.
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